The Education (Student Support) (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2004

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations.)

These Regulations amend the Education (Student Support) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2003 (S.R. 2003 No. 298) (“the 2003 Regulations”). Changes in relation to the rates of fees, grants and loans are specified in Schedule 3 to and in paragraphs (5) and (6) of regulation 12 of these Regulations. Changes of substance to the 2003 Regulations are described below.

Regulation 2 of and Schedule 1 are amended to treat Swiss migrant workers and their spouses and children on the same basis as EEA migrant workers.

Regulation 3 is amended to revoke obsolete transitional measures in relation to the Education (Student Support) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1998 (S.R. 1998/298).

Regulation 5 is amended in relation to designation of courses at certain institutions of higher education in the Republic of Ireland.

Regulation 6 (applications for financial support) is amended to allow students nine months instead of four from the start of the academic year in which to apply for support.

Regulation 10 (eligibility for grants for fees) is amended to ensure that paragraph (4), which allows certain exceptions to the bar on eligibility for students who have attended previous courses, only applies in relation to students who have failed to complete previous courses for compelling personal reasons where the previous course in question was the most recent course on which the student enrolled.

Regulation 11(1) has been amended to remove provisions, which were exceptionally included for certain students who commenced attending courses at institutions in the Republic of Ireland between September 1998 and August 1999. There are no longer any such students attending these institutions and therefore the provisions are redundant. Regulation 11(2) has been amended to clarify that grants for fees in respect of courses at institutions neither maintained nor assisted out of public funds, are payable only in respect of such institutions in the United Kingdom.

Regulation 13 is amended so that household income is used to assess the level of bursary payable rather than residual income. The thresholds of £10,000 and £20,000 have also been amended to £10,250 and £20,500 respectively.

Regulation 16 (grants for dependants) is amended in relation to paragraph (4), which concerns an eligible student who maintains a dependent who is ordinarily resident outside the United Kingdom. The Department’s discretion in this respect is removed, and the student is eligible for the maximum amount of grant only if he maintains a dependant who is ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom for six months or more of the relevant academic year.

Regulations 20 (maximum amounts of loans) and 24 (application of contribution) of the 2003 Regulations are amended to make provision, in relation to appropriate rates of loan, for students attending courses at a site or sites wholly or partly within the City of London or Metropolitan Police District, to cover those institutions which are not wholly within the relevant area.

Regulation 20 is further amended to remove the Department’s discretion in relation to cases where different rates of loan apply in relation to parts of the year, and provides instead that the applicable rate for any quarter will be that which applies in relation to the majority of that quarter or, where the student changes circumstances exactly midway through a quarter, whichever of the relevant rates is higher.

Regulations 25 and 26 are amended to substitute an obligation for the Department’s discretion in relation to making provisional payments where there has been a delay in calculating the amount of grant or loan which is payable.

A new Part VIII (assistance for part-time courses) is substituted for the relevant provisions in the 2003 Regulations. The main differences from the 2003 Regulations are as follows –

(a) the age limit is removed in relation to eligibility for assistance, and eligible part-time students may receive support for a total of eight years instead of six (regulation 28);

(b) loans will no longer be made available in relation to part time courses. Instead, students who qualify on financial grounds will receive a grant for fees capped at half the fee grant for full-time courses, and a grant for a maximum of £250 in respect of course expenditure. The full amount will be available to students in receipt of certain benefits, or whose income (with certain disregards) is below £14,600, and a reduced grant will be available on a tapering basis to those with higher incomes (regulation 30);

(c) other amendments are de-regulatory or technical.

A new Schedule 3 (financial assessment) is substituted for the relevant provisions in the 2003 Regulations. The main differences from the 2003 Regulations are as follows –

(a) the calculation of income is simplified. Instead of assessing all income with a large number of disregards, the assessment is based on gross taxable income, involving very few disregards other than payments towards a pension, earnings during the course and £1,000 for each dependent child (paragraphs 3 and 4);

(b) in relation to new students starting courses on or after 1st September 2004, the income of the spouse or co-habiting partner if the student’s natural parent is taken into account (paragraph 6);

(c) the student’s income is aggregated with that of the parent and other relevant household members to form the household income (paragraph 7);

(d) the household income threshold is £10,000 for single independent eligible students and £21,475 otherwise, and the contribution increases where the income exceeds that amount, until it reaches the total maximum contribution payable of £7,512. The rate for the parental contribution remains at £1 in every £12·50 and the partner’s rate has increased to £1 in every £9·50 (paragraph 8);

(e) the provisions relating to split contributions are amended to reflect these changes, particularly those relating to the spouse or co-habiting partner of the student’s natural parent. Other provisions in this regard allow for calculation of contribution where a student in a family of more than one eligible student has income of his own; for unused amounts of contribution payable from the household income of an eligible student’s parent who is himself an eligible student to be added to the income of that parent for the purpose of calculating his support; and to allow that calculation (where relevant) to be on the basis that the eligible student’s child’s contribution was assessed with reference to the parent’s partner, whether or not this was the case (paragraph 9).

Schedule 4 is substituted to add to and amend the descriptions in the list of institutions of higher education in the Republic of Ireland. Attendance at specified courses at these institutions is a basis for eligibility for a student to be supported.